Better Days
by Sir Gimp of Baath
Summary: What if Walter had found a different way to save the other world's Peter? Some things would be better. Some things would be worse. But everything would be a whole lot different.
1. Founding Day

"Come on, turn around... turn around... TURN AROUND, DAMN YOU!"

For a few precious seconds after the solution in the other Walter's lab turned blue, Walter Bishop merely cursed the Observer's tragic timing. The one experiment that would have saved the other Peter's life – the one chance he had to save his son, even if it was a different father and a different little boy – and it was interrupted.

Profanity gave way to abject despondency when the other Walter crossed his strangely clean lab and discarded what he thought was a failed experiment. It wasn't supposed to go like this. The other Walter was supposed to find the cure, save the boy. He had every advantage: better organization, better technology, a head start. It just wasn't supposed to _happen_ this way.

"...and yet..." Walter cast a glance about his lab. There _was_ something he could do. There were a few things he could do. He could reinstate the abandoned gate project, cross over to the other side, and either give the boy a dose of the remedy himself or give the formula to the other Walter. He could create a device to send radio waves across universes, hijack the other side's more advanced cell network to get a message across. He could create another window, one that would allow the other Walter to see him.

Or he could use brute force. A smile spread across his face, the look of a man with an untested toy and a worthy cause to put it to.

As the neatly-groomed alternate Walter went into his storage room for the next round of chemical tests, the Walter with more of a claim to the term "mad scientist" went digging in his chest of emergency inventions. Underneath a bag and a half of Brown Betty and an LP of Elvis' Greatest Hits, he found it: an oblong metal box that looked like a power strip with only one outlet and a huge, ominous red dial.

Clearing aside his cluttered workspace with a sweep of his arm, Walter quickly spliced the window's power cable into the modified surge protector. It was a rough job, a jury-rig of exposed yellow wirecaps and black electrical tape, but it wasn't meant to last more than a few minutes at best. After one last cursory check of his work, Walter plugged the tail end into a nearby socket.

The overhead lights dimmed; and at the same time, the picture through the window brightened. The power amplifier overrode the Harvard lab's breaker box, modulating the current so that it could be drawn straight from the high-tension lines. In turn, it fed all of that power into the window, allowing the trans-dimensional viewer to stretch the membrane between the worlds even thinner. By Walter's rough mental calculations, at the upper limit of the window's potential, the dimensional interface was thin enough that micro-wormholes would form, allowing small particles through in both directions. Small particles meant air. Air meant speech. Speech meant a warning.

Walternate looked up from his preparations for the next chemical mixture as he sensed something wrong in the air before him, but no sound came through. Walter moved closer to the screen, fiddling with the dials and connections, trying to pull the last ounce of performance out of it. That was all it would take.

The picture brightened again, glowing like a searchlight in the dimness of the lab, and started to waver. Every movement of Walternate's gloved hands left rippling afterimages in the surface of the screen, but still no sound came through. The image stayed silent as the scent of ozone filled the room and the lights died completely.

Finally, consumed with impotent frustration, Walter slammed his fist through the screen. He could feel the shards of the window cutting his hand and forearm, but the pain was forgotten when the sound of soaring strings filled the room.

Toccata and Fugue. He should have guessed that his counterpart was a classical fan.

He could see the other Walter's brow crease at the sight of a disembodied arm floating in the middle of his lab, but there was no time. The power amplifier was sending coruscating arcs to every nearby metal surface, causing the lights to flicker on again with every buzzing bolt.

"The last experiment! You had it right!"

He had just enough time to see the fire rekindle in the other Walter's eyes.

Then there was one last spark, and everything went white.

**BETTER DAYS**

**A Fringe AU Fanfic by Gavin King**

**Chapter One: Founding Day**

_The one thing about the whole ordeal that motivated me the most was that I'll never know if I succeeded. After I came back to my senses, I realized that I would have to help someone in a way I could measure, in a place I could see._

_-Walter Bishop, private journal_

**September 18, 2010**

**Worcester, Massachusetts**

**Peter Bishop Institute for Human Potential, Athletics Field**

The Director took his time adjusting the microphone, the same way he did every year. Everyone had their speculations about the reason. Some said that he was obsessive compulsive, and had to have it in _just_ the right position. Others said he just wanted to give everyone a chance to quiet down before he spoke.

Liv Dunham knew better. The Director had two reasons for taking his time with the microphone. The first was that even after twelve years, he didn't have perfect control over his cybernetic arm. Still, with admirable obstinacy, he insisted on doing almost everything with it. The more important reason was that he was fighting back tears, just like he did every year, and refused to face the students and faculty of the Institute without dry eyes.

"Peter would have been thirty-two today," Walter began, when he was ready. "I wish he was here so I could see the man he would have become. But more importantly, I wish he had lived to see the man I became."

He paused, looking out over the crowd. Liv waited, even though she knew the next line. It was the same every year, just another school tradition, just another reminder of their purpose. Some of the faculty and most of the students ribbed Dr. Bishop in private for his perceived senility, seeing the repeated speech as just another aspect of his eccentricity. To Liv, on the other hand, it was a comforting constant, a much-needed reminder of her purpose.

"When Peter died, I lost my way for a while. I drove away most of the things that made my life what it was, stopped living and just kept... existing. But I looked at my life. I looked at my choices. And I realized I had failed a lot more children than just Peter. And with the Cortexiphan children, those who we know today as the First Generation, I had a chance to redeem myself.

"So I did two things. I developed Septima, for the children who had been given Cortexiphan and wanted to regain their limits, to take a step back from the brink and revert to normalcy. But for the 'tex children who wanted to embrace their abilities, to seek their destinies beyond the limits of mundanity, I, with help from my friend William Bell, founded the Peter Bishop Institute for Human Potential, on what would have been Peter's ninth birthday.

"Today is the twenty-fourth anniversary of the Institute. But you're not here to hear an old man go on and on about something everyone knows, even if some of you would say that as the Director, I'm entitled." The deeply etched lines on his face smoothed out as an almost childish grin wiped away the stormclouds and raindrops of his nostalgia. "You're here for the barbecue."

Behind the rows and rows of folding chairs holding the majority of the Institute's students and staff, a fireball rose into the sky. Susan Pratt, a diminutive blonde clad in the school colors of charcoal and crimson, grinned widely and began shooting bursts of flame from her hands into the fuel box of a huge, wood-fired outdoor grill.

Liv jumped up and hustled towards the grill, staying barely ahead of the other hungry people in the audience. The crowd stood around watching the pyrokinetic chef work her magic. Someone passed out styrofoam plates and napkins.

Walter sidled up next to Liv, the crowd parting easily to let him through. Amid the general hubbub of conversation (both the timid squeaks of first-years and the more confident chatter of the older students) their conversation was all but inaudible.

"Livy!" Walter exclaimed. "It's good to see you back here. How was Maine?"

"Easier than I thought. It turns out it was just some high school kid exploiting an anomalous patch of soft gravity to do skateboard tricks."

"To impress a girl, I presume?"

She chuckled. "Naturally."

"Well, we should consider ourselves lucky for simple problems." In front of them, Susan and some of the older students who had been press-ganged into helping her began to throw meat onto the grill. "By the way, there's something you need to know."

Her smile faltered briefly when she saw his face, lined in concern. "What?"

"Nick's back from Chile. He's going back into teaching."

A pang of something sharp and unpleasant shot through her gut. "I thought he was going to be gone for three years."

"He had better luck than he thought. Twelve willing participants. Given our current resources, we thought it was prudent to bring him back home."

"I don't think I can deal with him right now," Liv said quietly. She knew that Walter couldn't hear her over the crowd, but he knew her well enough to guess her feelings. "Not with a new school year starting."

"I asked Carla and Ms. Andrews to put you on opposite teaching schedules," he replied. "I'll do what I can to make sure you have the time you need. But, Livy, you need to learn to work with him sometime."

"It's not as simple as just learning to live with someone. There's the _link_..." The same link which had brought her and Nick together, and the same link that had torn them apart. A few of the other First Generation 'texxers had developed the same kind of link, but Liv and Nick were the only linked pair left where neither party had taken Septima.

"I know. I know. But there are things I can't help." Walter grabbed Olivia's shoulder with his flesh-and-blood hand. "If you need to take some time, off, I can find..."

Liv shook her head. "No. I can handle this. We have few enough teachers as it is. And you're right, we need Nick here."

"That's my girl." He clapped her on the shoulder again. "Besides, if you think that's hard? Try giving a commencement speech when you're high as a kite."

Her eyes shot up. "You're not."

He just chuckled. "I'm going to go get a bag of chips. See you at the faculty meeting."

Olivia watched him as he left, the crowd once again parting almost unconsciously to accommodate him. She was suddenly afraid to look into the crowd for the chance she'd find Nick there, so she just watched Susan grill and felt her stomach rumble.

XXX

_The best results so far seem to be from a combination of the Delta-variant Cortexiphan and a Septima precursor. In theory, this will remove the limits on the mind early enough to matter, but delay the manifestation of the power to a point where the augmentee will be able to handle the physical, mental, and emotional demands._

_-Walter Bishop, research log, 1988_

XXX

After the hamburgers and hot dogs had all been served, but before the traditional Founding Day dessert of root beer floats, came the annual announcements. A huge bulletin board was set up in the middle of the athletic fields for just this purpose, and the entire student body crowded around the two-sided board to see where Destiny (not the abstract force, but Destiny Andrews, the woman who worked in the scheduling office) had placed them.

The first years, what in a normal school would be eighth graders, formed a dense cluster around the northern side of the board, jostling to have a peek at the neatly typed lists of names and rooms. The older students tended to wait on the fringes of the crowd, since dorm assignments didn't tend to vary much from year to year, and they could afford to wait. Especially if it meant avoiding being trampled by overeager first years.

The one exception to this rule was the fourth-year Unit assignments. The fourth-years were clustered just as tightly around their side of the board as the first-years on the other side, and for good reason. The Unit placement was when the Institute curriculum changed from mostly schoolwork to mostly hands-on training. The other three people in your Unit were to be your constant companions for the final three years of training, for good or for ill. There was much potential for strife, but in practice it was very rare. Destiny just happened to be a 'texxer, one of the Second Generation, with the power to see interpersonal relationships. She had final say on Unit assignments, and not even Walter could gainsay her on this. So when the pattern of harmony was broken, and two students with a preexisting conflict were placed in the same unit, there was always a reason for it.

"What the hell? I'm in a unit with Bill Tolleson? There's no reason for this!"

Tyler Redfield looked around in sudden embarrassment from his outburst, but he went unnoticed in the crowd of fourth-years having similar (but usually less profane) epiphanies. Sighing, he turned back to the board to read the other names in his list.

He wasn't surprised to see "O'Killey, Claire" next on the list. She had been in practically all of his classes since day one. There was a running joke amongst their shared circle of friends that Destiny was trying to hook the two of them up. He would have been more surprised if she was in a _different_ unit, and that was all right with him. Whether it was by genuine personal compatibility or extended periods of unwilling proximity, the two of them were close friends.

"Asajima, Sayuri" was an unknown. He knew her by face and name, but the sum total of his knowledge of her personality could be expressed as "kinda dresses like a punk, I guess."

There was one more name. Right below the words "UNIT FOURTEEN" and above the dorm number, in bold, was "**Mentor: Dunham, Olivia**."

Professor Dunham. Professor Dunham was his Unit instructor. Professor Dunham, the head Combat Tactics instructor. Professor Dunham, who was practically Director Bishop's right hand. Professor Dunham, who was often said to be the nicest terrifying person you'll ever meet.

Suddenly Tyler was less concerned that Bill Tolleson was in his Unit.

Someone yelled "ROOT BEER!" from the direction of the food tables, and the crowd dispersed almost immediately. Tyler stuck his hands in his pockets and started to follow the flood of people, knowing that there was always plenty to go around. Where they managed to get root beer in kegs and ice cream in five-gallon buckets, he didn't know. He was pretty sure he didn't mind, though.

As he approached the tables, he glimpsed a tall strawberry blonde and hustled to catch up. "Claire!"

"Hey, Tyler." She slowed down to let him catch up. "Excited about the posting?"

"Dunham? You know I am! Getting apprenticed to her practically guarantees getting placed on a field team!" He studied her face as they walked. "You seem less enthusiastic."

"Well... Professor Dunham is fantastic, but it's like you said, getting placed with her means field work, Fringe team placement, that kind of thing. I've always thought my calling was humanitarian work."

"You could always talk to her about it. Or Destiny, or Ms. Warren, or even the Director."

"Maybe. I don't want to leave you guys in the lurch though."

They reached the back of the ice cream line. "Do what you need to do, Claire. I mean, I'd miss you, but... well, you would be leaving me alone with Tolleson. Never mind, I'd never forgive you if you left."

She rolled her eyes. "What the heck did he do, kill your dog? I don't think I've seen the two of you exchange more than five words in conversation. Besides, you'd have Sayuri."

"You know her? What's she like?"

"She kinda dresses like a punk, I guess. Other than that, I don't really know. She was in a couple of the same study groups, but...wait, why are you asking me? We've always been in the same classes, and she's only been in one or two of the same ones as us."

"You're the one who brought her up."

"Only as the person who would have to deal with your ridiculous rivalry if I swapped Units." The line moved forward again and a red plastic cup was offered to each of them. Tyler took his, but Claire shook her head. "Do you have sugar free?"

Sure enough, there were a few two-liters of diet root beer on ice. There was only the one kind of ice cream, but Claire took a scoop of it anyway. "Aren't you not supposed to have _any_ sugar?"

"It's all right. I can just jab a needle into my arm afterwards."

Tyler felt a little green.

"Pfft. Baby." She stuck a straw into her cup and took a sip. "Maybe you shouldn't be on a combat team after all."

XXX

"_This book is absolute drivel. Worcester's no different from any other college town, and implying that the Institute created some kind of 'superhuman sin city' in the surrounding area is laughable to anyone who's actually lived there. The author is just feeding off anti-augment prejudice, and in this day and age there's no reason for that."_

_-anonymous review of the book _'Tex, Drugs, and Rock'n'Roll: The Institute and the Worcester Underground

XXX

As soon as Sayuri Asajima stepped into the dorm room, the microwave tried to strike up a conversation.

[HI!]

_[...hi.]_

[I'm a microwave!]

_[I know.]_

[I know you know! But you're the only person who listens!]

_[That's my power, yeah.]_

She sighed and set her duffel bag down beside the sofa. The sofa was an enormous green modular beast that looked ludicrously comfy, surrounding a huge plasma TV set into the wall. The kitchen was across the greatroom from the sofa, meaning she had to strain a bit to hear the chipper appliance.

_[Well, it's nice to meet you. I, uh... I guess I look forward to heating something up inside you?]_

[Well, _I_ certainly do!]

She flopped down on the couch, finding it just as comfortable as it looked. _[Hey. TV.]_

[Zzzzsnzzx... huh?] The television blinked on, showing static.

_[Got any good old movies?]_

[Day the Earth Stood Still on 46. Are you a sci-fi fan, ma'am?] She wasn't sure why the TV sounded like a British butler, but that was one of the less weird things in her life recently.

_[Sounds good to me.]_

The TV blinked on, showing the scene where the ship opens for the first time. Just then, the front door to the dorm (or, rather, student apartment – the Institute spared no costs) opened and a tall, thin boy with angular features and severe eyebrows walked in with two suitcases. "Hey, Sayuri."

"Hey, Bill." She wasn't quite sure how to react to him. He was in the awkward zone; somewhere between an acquaintance and a friend. "Guess we're roomies now, huh?"

"Looks like it." He stared at the duffel bag dumped unceremoniously on the floor. "Picked a room yet?"

"I wanted to wait until the other two got in." She looked over the couch at him. "By the way, what're they like? I haven't met them yet."

"They're pretty close. Don't know a whole lot about Claire specifically, but Tyler's an ass."

"Wait, how much of an ass are we talking here?"

Bill set his suitcases down next to Sayuri's duffel bag, following her walkway-obstructing lead. "Well, he's not a murderer or anything, he just kind of has a hero complex. Always acting like he's going to save the world someday. By the way, I noticed that you're watching TV. Did anyone tell you that they're not hooking up the TV until the end of the week?"

"Uh.. no. No they didn't." _Busted._

Apologies, ma'am. You said you wanted a movie, and I found one.

"So... you're a technopath?"

She nodded. "The first full one, supposedly. They were pretty excited until I found out I can't actually boss machines around. It's great with friendly gadgets, but not all of them are. For some reason, Apple products hate me." She kicked her feet up on the table. "So what's your thing?"

"Sure you want to know?"

"We're going to be training together. Better now than later."

"All right," he said, and the next thing she knew, Sayuri woke up on the floor.

She sat up and rubbed her head. There was no headache, but she felt a lingering sense of fuzziness. "Uh. What was that?"

"My ability." He held up two fingers like a gun and blew on his fingertips. "I suppress neural activity in short bursts. You were out for three or four seconds, tops."

The door opened again, and the final two members of Unit Fourteen entered the apartment. Sayuri stood up to get a good look at them over the back of the couch. The girl was almost as tall as Bill, but she slumped, almost like she was trying to hide her height. The boy was significantly shorter, with clear blue eyes and a distracted impression. They were both carrying two suitcases apiece, as well as backpacks. Tyler looked like he was about to say something, but Claire cut in first.

"Hi! You must be Sayuri. I'm Claire, this is Tyler. Hi, Bill."

"Hi, Claire," Bill replied, glaring at Tyler.

"Nice to meet you, Sayuri." Tyler didn't meet her eyes, instead glaring back at Bill.

Claire sighed. "Play nice, you two." She glanced at the pile of luggage in the middle of the room. "Haven't picked rooms yet?"

"No, we wanted to work it out with you two beforehand. Are they always like this?"

"Pretty much. Do either of you guys have any objections?"

Neither Tyler nor Bill averted their eyes from their incredibly mature staring contest, but they at least both shrugged.

"It's settled then. I take the room at the far left, you take the room at the far right. The boys can fight over the ones in the middle."

"Hey!" Tyler turned to Claire. "_Now_ I have an objection!"

She grinned mischievously, and Sayuri decided right then and there that they were going to get along just fine. "Too late."

"...Judas," he grumbled.

Suddenly, the air in the middle of the living room shimmered like a heat mirage. A split in reality opened, and a woman with pixie-cut blonde hair dressed in the school colors of charcoal and crimson stepped out as if doing nothing more extraordinary than parting a curtain.

As the four stared in shock, Professor Liv Dunham smiled almost awkwardly. "Hi. I'm Ms. Dunham, your faculty mentor for the next three years. Your first lesson? The element of _surprise_."


	2. Candles and Cake

Special Agent Olivia Dunham slid the pin out of the grenade. She peeked around her cover, just long enough to line up her shot, and lobbed it underhand onto the street below. Three carefully-measured breaths later, there was a muffled splat and an angry roar.

"Damn it! Missed!" She held down the button on her walkie talkie as she hunkered behind the ruined second-story wall. "Charlie! Lincoln! That was my last goo grenade, the Allosaurus is still on the loose!"

Charlie Francis' voice crackled from the speaker. "You glued his tail to a car! He's slowed down enough to use the net. Come back down!"

Olivia peeked down over the wall. Sure enough, there was a string of super sticky nanofibrous glue holding a Mazda on to the tail of the twenty foot tall dinosaur.

"Who knew these damn things had feathers?" Special Agent Lincoln Lee swore through the walkie talkie. "All right, the net gun is in place. Olivia, we could really use your help!"

Olivia crossed the rubbled floor to the stairs and took them three at a time to the ground floor. As she descended, there was another roar from the street, and a metallic screech.

The building she was in had at one point been a bank. The teller stations were dusty with disuse, though, and the columns were dangerously cracked. Olivia sprinted out the shattered glass doors to find Charlie and Lincoln hiding behind a green SUV, scrambling to set up a gunmetal gray mortar tube.

"Seriously?" Olivia ducked down with them. "You think we need the tripod? Give me that."

The other two agents shrugged and handed her the launcher. Olivia grabbed it, feeling its incredibly dense heft, and ducked around the side of the truck.

The Allosaurus stared at her with one beady eye, slowly processing her presence through its baseball-sized brain. The car was still glued to its tail, and all the struggling had only allowed the nanogoop to stick it on tighter, but it was barely more than a hunk of scrap metal by this point. If the huge carnivore were smarter, it could have used it as a club. However, all it was doing was flailing.

"Hey you! Stinky!"

As if it understood the insult, the huge dinosaur growled and began stomping in her direction. However, the car on its tail slowed it down a lot, and it paused distractedly after a few steps to snap at its backside.

Olivia took the opportunity to sprint straight at it, ducking as she reached the last ten feet. By then the Allosaurus had turned around. It reared back to attack, but she was already underneath it.

"Hey Al! Suck on this!"

Olivia braced the end of the net launcher against the cracked asphalt and hit the trigger. The nitrogen canister inside the launcher burst, flinging the net out of the end and putting a dent in the ground.

The net flew upwards and wrapped around the dinosaur's head and arms. Then the three depleted uranium weights, one on each corner of the triangular net, snapped the Allosaurus' head up and back.

There was another roar. When the dust settled, she could see the Allosaurus on its side, growling and snapping at the rapidly contracting fiber strands of the net. Like the goo, the more it struggled the more encumbered it became.

"We can leave that for the cleanup crews to get." said Olivia as Charlie and Lincoln came from around the car, clapping. She tossed them the launcher tube. "If you have any more shots, load 'em in there. We still have about four hundred feet to go until we hit the breach."

"Remind me why they sent the two of us again?" Charlie asked.

Lincoln laughed. "Someone's gotta load the net gun and hand her goo grenades, after all."

"Don't sell yourselves short. You guys bring me coffee sometimes, too." Olivia pulled out her omnipad and held it out in front of her, reading the spinning arrows and scrolling columns of numbers like second nature. "We're heading north, past Sixth. Someone reported something that looks like a T-Rex, so watch out."

"I don't think we're the ones that need to watch out," muttered Charlie.

XXX

**Better Days**

**Chapter 2: Candles and Cake**

XXX

_The most frustrating thing is that I know nothing of the Observers' motives. Nothing I have found about them so far indicates any reason for them to have made the changes they have made. Only two things are clear. First, they are ominously omnipresent. And second, if there hadn't been a timely piece of intervention, they would have murdered my son._

_Secretary Walter Bishop, personal journal_

XXX

Secretary Walter Bishop spent a disproportionate amount of time thinking about interior decoration.

Not in his and Elizabeth's home, obviously. That was her domain, and aesthetics were not his main concern. What he was interested in was his office, the massive room underneath the Statue of Liberty that held more secrets than any other place on Earth. Not many people saw this room, but many knew of it; and besides, it was probably photographed more than the old Oval Office or the new Rectangle Room.

The reason for Walter's interest in this room's decor was for its effect on the people that he would meet within. It had to be austere enough to impress the people who were seeking Secretary Bishop's favor, but it still had to be warm enough to welcome his loyal agents and sources. As it was, he went for an old style study feel, with a map of the US on the wall, and chairs arranged in a loose semicircle on the perimeter of the room.

Those chairs were empty now. The room's only occupants were either the Secretary of Defense himself, or standing in the middle of the floor.

"And the breach has been sealed?"

Agent Lincoln Lee nodded. "The amber was put in place right after Agent Dunham took down the second Allosaurus."

There was a momentary flash of something in Agent Olivia Dunham's eyes at the mention of the word 'amber,' but Walter couldn't recognize it.

"And the permanent seal?"

"We've called in an Obelisk," said Agent Charlie Francis, a man who had entirely too many scars for his relative youth. "We should be able to dissolve the amber and rehabilitate that part of Newark in about four days."

"Excellent. Any lasting effects?"

"There were some escapees. Actually, kind of a lot of escapees." Agent Olivia Dunham smiled crookedly. "But they all headed south."

"And south New Jersey is all DoD territory anyhow. Don't worry, I'll put out a bulletin and get this cleared up." Secretary Bishop clapped his hands in a way that unambiguously ended the formal part of the debriefing. "Fantastic work, all three of you. It is a little troubling that there have been so many Fringe results related to prehistoric fauna lately, but that's a matter for the science teams. Now, I have a favor to ask the three of you."

The three Agents showed interest, but not apprehension. Good. That kind of loyalty was exactly what he needed, especially when a later task might be less benign than this one.

"My son, Peter, is having his birthday party tonight. He normally wouldn't want a big deal made of it, but being both my son and head of Bishop Dynamic in his own right, people tend to make a fuss. As such, it's going to be a political event more than anything." He rested his hands on his polished mahogany desk. "I need some representation from Fringe Division there. Colonel Broyles is going to be in attendance, of course, but he requested... backup, shall we say."

"So you just want us to attend a party, sir?" Agent Dunham said skeptically. "Nothing else?"

"Well... think of it like a trade. I get to show off one of the best Fringe teams in the division to impress the budgetmakers and the like, Broyles doesn't have to talk the whole time, and you three get to eat fancy food all night and maybe meet the President."

Agent Francis raised an eyebrow. "Is the President going to be there, Sir?"

"I'd have to ask Elizabeth, she's handling the RSVPs." Walter knew very well that the President was going to send the vice president in his stead, but it would do him no good to reveal his sources to three field-level agents. "In any case. All of you are invited, and you may bring a guest. All of you are free tonight, I hope? Any guests?"

Agents Dunham and Lee nodded, despite their evident discomfort at being invited to a party by their boss's boss, and glanced at Agent Francis, who shrugged. "Mona's in LA for an entomology conference. I can come."

"Good." Secretary Bishop smiled, a tightly controlled gesture that nevertheless held real humor. "I apologize for the abruptness and... political motivations for the invitation, but I genuinely hope the three of you have a good time. I'll have dress and invitation details emailed to your stations. Any questions?"

The agents shook their heads and filed out of the room. Walter waited until they were out of eyeshot, then pressed his hand against a recessed panel in the wall.

The panel slid open, revealing a narrow stairwell. He quickly descended, mindful of the metallic slickness of the stairs and the dank weight to the air.

At the bottom of the stairs was a hallway. There were several different ways to access this subbasement, but none of them were particularly easy. All of them, save this one, were heavily guarded.

Secretary Bishop passed through the hallway to a small, spartan antechamber with three heavily secured doors. Behind each door was one of the Secretary's best kept secrets. The first was a source of information, the second was a personal curiosity, and the third was a tool he hoped he'd never have to use.

He sighed, then punched in the eleven-digit code on the left hand keypad. "Perhaps we can get some work done today, hmm?"

Somewhere behind the door, something groaned.

xxx

_Citizens of the New Jersey area are cautioned today to spend as little time outside as possible, as the warning level for Triassic to Cretaceous era megafauna is currently at Orange. If a carnivorous or otherwise hazardous saurian is spotted, you are urged to call the Fringe Containment Hotline at 1-993-463-SAFE._

-WTRT radio broadcast

xxx

The Bishop mansion in Queens was a masterpiece of understated architecture. It was no less than a fortified stronghold and practically a small complex in its own right, but the lines and layout were that of a much smaller, more modest home.

It was into this complex that Agent Olivia Dunham was unceremoniously deposited by her terse DoD driver. After Olivia tossed back an unreciprocated farewell, the driver took off into the mass of limos and fortified sedans moving in and out of the premises.

As soon as she orienteered her way through the neat, geometric front gardens, she began to feel underdressed. Her wardrobe contained little outside the categories of "business" and "casual", and she had eventually settled on a forest green shirt with black slacks and a black business blazer. The other women there were in dresses, elaborate things that looked like they belonged on a red carpet somewhere... or at least a senior prom.

Still, nobody seemed to mind too much. People said that Olivia gave off a "cop vibe", and that was probably what people were seeing now.

A man in a suit with dark glasses and an earbud who looked like he bench-pressed refrigerators sidled up beside her as soon as she stepped into the mansion proper. "Agent Dunham, the Secretary wants to see you."

Olivia nodded and followed the guard through the crowd of people. Unsurprisingly, the revelers, who were strewn all through the halls of the mansion, gave the two of them wide berth.

They ended up at the ballroom. There was a live string quartet in the back, playing Bach. Olivia thought that was probably the Secretary's doing; his tendency for blaring classical music as he worked was well known.

Still, it complemented the old-world feel of the ornate ballroom well, and Olivia wasn't one to complain about well-played music.

"Ah! Agent Dunham!" The Secretary of Defense was talking to a portly man with a bad comb-over and a suit that he probably thought was well-tailored. "This is Senator Robert Brigham. I was just telling him about your... prehistoric adventures earlier today."

"I'm not sure I'd use the word 'adventure,' sir. Maybe more like 'cleanup.'"

Secretary Bishop chuckled. "Still, he seems to be genuinely interested in the number of megafauna excursions the Fringe Division has been having lately. Would you mind regaling him with your exploits while I fetch myself another drink?"

As the Secretary turned away, she could distinctly see him mouth the word "sorry" at her. She had about three seconds to wonder what that was about when Senator Brigham shouted, "And how do you sleep at night?"

Olivia blinked and looked behind her, but there was nobody else who it seemed the Senator would be talking to. "Me?"

"Yes, you! Your Fringe division is taking money out of our defense budget!"

Olivia just stared at the red-faced senator. "Well, yeah. That's what a division is. It's a sub-organization that takes funding from a larger organization, and..."

"I know what a division is! But there's hardly any money left for conventional defenses!"

Olivia, despite her better instincts, laughed. "Are you for real? We're talking about the deterioration of reality, due to a malevolent campaign initiated by the nigh-omnipotent Observers. Are you going to say that we should be fighting them off with tanks? You can't shoot a rift in reality. Well, you can, but it doesn't do anyone any good."

"I don't believe in the Observers." Senator Brigham grabbed an hors d'oeuvre off of a passing tray and stuffed it in his mouth without so much as looking at it. "It's all just a conspiracy to get more funding for Secretary Bishop's precious Fringe Division. Sure there are rifts, but we don't know what they are or where they came from. For all we know, they could be God's plan. And he's got the rest of Congress eating out of his hand! My organization won't stand for this!"

"Whoa, whoa, back up. God's plan? You think that God is trying to tear the universe in half like a low-fat tortilla?"

Senator Brigham narrowed his eyes at her. "Who else has the power?"

"The Observers. You know, bald guys, look like they came out of a period piece about Chicago gangsters, apparently dedicated to the destruction of the universe? Have you even seen the footage of any Fringe event? They're always there."

"You know as well as I do how easy video is to fake. I wouldn't be surprised if you're in on it yourself."

"I can guarantee you that nobody in Fringe division has ever doctored photos or video to add the Observers." _To add other things, sure,_ she thought. _But what this guy – and Broyles – don't know can't hurt them._ "But if you want another Lake Tahoe, 1989 – or God forbid, another Central Park 1997 – then go ahead and try to cut our funding."

He leaned in closer to her, and she backed up a step. No matter how fancy the appetizers, deviled-egg breath is never pleasant. His voice suddenly sounded rougher, scratchier. "You'll see soon enough how wrong you all are."

"Well, I'm glad to see that you two are getting along!" Secretary Bishop said as he walked back onto the scene with a drink in each hand. "Now, Agent Dunham, why don't I introduce you around some more."

Despite the Senator's blustering, Olivia nodded, took the proffered drink, and followed the Secretary to another part of the ballroom, a little further from the band. "Apologies," he whispered. "I despise that man, but that's no excuse for dumping him with you. I guarantee the other conversations you'll have tonight will be much more pleasant, even if this is still technically work."

"Don't worry about it, Sir. The Senator didn't bother me much. I've been dealing with dinosaurs all day; what's one more?"

Secretary Bishop chuckled. "That's true enough. Now, let's see. I've got your colleagues talking to most of the Defense Budget Committee, but I think you should meet the man of the hour first."

xxx

Dr. Peter Bishop got tired of all the fuss sometimes.

To be sure, being the head of Bishop Dynamic as well as the Secretary of Defense's son didn't exactly make his life difficult. There was just something frustrating about having every birthday party turned into a political event.

So far, Peter had managed to avoid most of the political guests. His father, ever the schemer, was able to do that much for him. Whenever one of the congressmen or high-level bureaucrats in attendance wanted to talk to the "birthday boy," they would find themselves herded into another fascinating conversation with someone else who was just trying to see Peter. That left only the people who Walter had vetted for Walter to see – all of them close friends, or at least friendly acquaintances who weren't only after Peter for his political connections.

Peter's current conversation was with Te'mee, a silvery woman-shaped humanoid mass of mercurial protomatter. She was an old friend of the family, and was in fact the Proto ambassador to humanity.

"I'd like to take a trip back to the rift," she said. "Rate of accumulation has slowed down - whatever source the protomatter is coming from, it's starting to run out. Some of your father's best scientists are trying to figure out why."

"I've heard about it. Do you want me to send a team down there, too?"

Te'mee shook her head. The wirelike curls of silvery "hair" that she had molded herself into for the occasion bounced and shook with each motion. Te'mee was unlike a lot of protomatter beings in that she took such care with her appearance; for formal events like this, she even formed her body into elegant dresslike folds just to look nice. "Your father is actually sending out some Bishop Dynamic contractors with the rest of them."

"I really wish he'd ask me before he did that," Peter grumbled. He wasn't completely serious, though. At this point, the DoD and Bishop Dynamic were hardly separate entities. Sometimes Peter wondered if the only reason they were still separate at all was because the Secretary wanted to give his son something to do.

"I, for one, am just glad that Te'Jaerm has been quiet lately," Te'mee replied. "Although some of us think that he's behind this, for whatever reason."

Peter leaned in closer. "And what about the stolen transfer devices?" he whispered.

"With your father's help, we caught one in Seoul trying to link up with an anti-sealing cult. There are still about fifty unaccounted for. Te'jaerm's... _shapeshifters_... are still unaccounted for." She shuddered, little wavelets of mercury colliding all through her body. "No Proto should use one of those things. It's just... unclean."

"Have you ever used one? I know you're the oldest, and the devices were intended to help your people mix into human society easily..."

"No. I'm just fine with my body the way it is." She held up a hand and morphed it into an intricate metallic likeness of a songbird. "We're weaker this way, and easier to disrupt, but I feel like this is the way it should be. And besides, supposedly the data storage chip itches and itches and itches..."

Peter shuddered. "I can see why you wouldn't want that."

"Peter!" Secretary Bishop walked up to the two of them. Trailing behind him was an attractive redhead in what looked like business casual. Somehow, Peter could just _tell_ she was a cop. "Te'mee! There's someone I want you to meet. This is Agent Olivia Dunham."

The name seemed a little familiar to Peter, but it took a couple of seconds for him to remember where he knew it from. "Oh! You're the agent who was in charge of taking out the dinosaurs this morning! I saw it on my newsfeed." He held out his hand and noted that she had a hell of a firm grip.

"Still easier to handle than Senator Blowhard back there." Olivia turned to Te'mee, held her fingertips together, and inclined her head slightly. "Hello, Ambassador."

Te'mee rippled in surprise. "You know our greeting customs?"

"My commander informed me that we're going to get a Proto on the team soon, so I thought I'd brush up on Proto customs and culture."

"Well, I'm impressed," Peter said. "You didn't do the rippling head thing quite right, though."

"I'll remember to wear my liquid metal makeup next time, then."

Te'mee quivered with laughter, the movement sending undulating waves throughout her structure. It looked somewhat like her earlier gesture of revulsion, but less... chaotic, somehow. "Ro'dess is a good friend of mine. He'll be more than happy to work with you, I think."

"So!" Peter grabbed two drinks from a nearby tray and handed one of them to Olivia. Te'mee's left hand formed into the likeness of a martini glass for the sake of appearances. "Tell us about the ancient, grumpy beast you've been harassing."

"The Allosaurus or the senator?"

Peter decided right there that he _liked_ this lady. "Well, the senator's probably more dangerous, so start with the dino."

"Well, it's been the third or fourth rift like this since March. It started in Southern Newark, and..."

Agent Dunham's explanation was cut short by the blare of a familiar klaxon. Everyone in the ballroom looked around in fear at the sound. Several glasses were dropped to the floor, forgotten amidst the chaos.

"A rift..." Peter turned to Agent Dunham, suddenly more annoyed that his conversation had been cut short than by the impending transuniversal disaster. "Go find my father and Broyles. It was good talking to you, but I need to take Te'mee into the shelter."

"Right." She nodded sharply and hustled off into the chaotic, teeming mob to find her commanding officer.

Te'mee had unformed her dress, her hair, and her glass, and was standing in a featureless humanoid form. "Let's hurry, Peter," she said, her voice a little shaky. "Before I start to fray."

Peter grabbed her by the elbow, a little worried by the lack of solidity, and hurried out of the room towards the Faraday cage shelter.


	3. Eleven Seconds

Knock. Knock.

"Come in!"

A familiar, weathered face appeared in the crack in Director Walter Bishop's office door. "Hello, Walter. Mind if we talk for a bit?"

"Hello, William. I thought you'd be in New York today." Walter shuffled papers around in an attempt to make his working space look less like a disaster zone. It didn't accomplish much, but disturbed a tremendous amount of dust. "Come in, sit down."

William Bell entered the room and sat in one of the overstuffed chairs facing Walter's desk. The director wasn't sure he liked the look on his old friend's face, but there was no point to turning him away. Besides, he was fairly sure he knew what was coming. "I need your help in the lab, Walter. You have lots of staff here to run the Institute for you; you don't need to be involved in every little thing. Imagine what we could do if we were working together again."

"Damn it, William, we've had this conversation before." Walter tried again to de-clutter his desk, more angrily this time, but the lack of dexterity in his artificial hand made the task difficult. Eventually he gave up fidgeting and just looked at Bell. "The Institute is my responsibility, and I'll be running this place until I'm no longer able to do so."

"It's a responsibility that you created out of whole cloth, Walter. I know you don't want to be here. Don't you want to get back to the lab, to do science again?"

"I am doing science, William. I just have a different laboratory now." He swept his hand at the picture window behind his desk, looking out over the Common Green. Students lounged in the fall sunlight, studying and having fun. "Each of those students has a gift, a fire within them that needs to be fed."

"I don't mean to belittle your students, Walter, but you have a gift too. And I think you're wasting it, here, being an administrator."

Dr. Bishop rubbed his temples. "Belly... I know what you're doing. You see your old friend Walter throwing himself into his work, in a field outside his normal expertise, and you think he's trying to fill a hole in his life."

"To be honest...yes. You're not doing anyone any favors with this crusade."

"I'm doing lots of people a favor. You just don't see it as an important one."

William's face fell for a moment, and he shook his head. "I'm not here to argue about your life choices. I gave up on that a long time ago."

"Why are you here, then?"

"Even if you're not going to leave the school to someone else, I was hoping you could work with me. There's a project I want to reopen." William took out a manila folder and handed it across the desk to Walter.

Walter opened the folder and paged through the contents quickly. There were sketches, schematics, and experimental results, in no particular order. However, even with the technical nature of the documents and the utter lack of organization, Walter knew what he was looking at immediately.

"No. William, we're not doing this."

"I think it's time. You don't have any evidence that it'll cause problems."

"I have all of the evidence I need." Walter grabbed a remote control off his desk from under a pile of papers. The flat-screen television on the wall flickered to life, and Walter used the control to select an archived video. "Fourteen people dead on a train in Vermont. Twelve people hospitalized after the airport disaster in Toronto. These are just the first ones I can think of. Reopening the gate project will only further destabilize the universe, and more people will be killed."

"You know what the technology is like on the other side. They can help. They might even have figured out how to seal the breach. We can't even identify the breach event that started the deterioration in the first place."

Walter thought back to the night in the lab, the entire room in shambles, and him bleeding on the floor short one arm. "You're right. We don't. And that's all the reason I need to never experiment in that area again."

William pushed out his chair and began walking to the door. "I'm sorry, Walter, but I don't think there's any reason not to recruit the help of the people from the other side. We just can't handle this on our own. I understand your motivations, and I'm sorry not to have your help, but one way or another this is going to happen."

Walter could have said any number of things, but silence seemed like the best option. As his old friend walked out the door, he turned his head back to the window overlooking Common Green.

"Not if I have my little trump cards," he said softly.

xxx

**Better Days**

**Chapter 3**

**Eleven Seconds**

xxx

Liv was determined to get to her first field placement with Unit Fourteen a quarter of an hour early. That was usually earlier than the students showed up, and it made a good impression to be the first person on the training field.

Of course, nothing ever went according to plan. As she hustled through Cooper Hall, she felt a twinge right between her eyes, the same place that itched when she used her Cortexiphan powers. It was the link. And there was no time to avoid it.

Nick Lane popped around the corner, barely avoiding colliding with her. He had a confused, dark look on his face – much like the one she herself wore. She looked into his dark brown eyes, and the link twinged even harder.

The two of them stopped in their tracks, not moving, just staring. Each of them waited to see who would make the first move. Eventually, it was Nick who broke the ice.

"Hi."

"...Hi."

"You're heading to your field training?"

Liv let out a breath in mild relief. Teaching was a safe topic. It was professional, it was something they had in common, it didn't tie back into the millions of things that would start another damn argument... "Yeah. Are you coming from yours?"

He nodded. The lines in his face told her that he was just as relieved as she was. "One of my students didn't show up. Not answering her cell, not in her room, just gone. Her unit members don't have any idea where she could've gone." He rubbed his temple, and Liv could feel him unconsciously projecting his frustration and anxiety at her. Those were always two of the hardest emotions for him to keep bottled up.

She pushed down the artificial sensations, a reflex she hadn't had to use in a while. "Any idea where to start looking?"

"I'm headed to see if Destiny or Director Bishop knows anything. Beyond that, I don't know."

"Well, good luck with that." The conversation should have been over, she should have just walked away, she should have suppressed what she was going to say next... "And how's Sally?"

His eyes widened briefly, a pained look overtaking him for a moment before he regained his cool, composed mask. "She...we're not together anymore." He looked at her silently, and she thought he wasn't going to elaborate, but after a few seconds he went on. "At the facility in Chile, she lost control and a kid got burned. Everyone forgave her – the kid's parents, the kid, the directors – but she took it really hard. We were having some... troubles before then anyway, but the clincher was when I came home one day and found she'd taken Septima."

"But she's First Generation. I thought I would have heard about another one of us going mundane."

"Walter's keeping it from spreading very far. It doesn't look very good for the Institute if some of its luminaries are renouncing their abilities." His face went sour. "I understand his reasons, but I still wish there could have been another way to handle it than just cover it up."

"There aren't very many of us left," Liv said quietly. She couldn't count them all precisely, but more than half of the First Generation had taken Septima. She felt another touch on her emotions, a gentler, more deliberate one this time, trying to tell her to _just drop it, it's not important._

"Knock that off," she hissed.

He looked suitably chastened. "I thought we could just stay together, even though she wasn't augmented any more, but it was too much of a strain. She found some other guy in Chile, and I came back here. Meeting our recruiting quota was only part of the reason."

Liv suddenly realized how much time had passed – both in their conversation and in the silence that had preceded it. "Listen, Nick, I have to go." She paused, not sure if she should pursue her current train of thought. "We really need to talk sometime, though. Maybe over coffee. There was a lot of bad blood shed between us, and we need to work things out if we're going to work together."

"Um. Yeah." He sighed. "I missed you, Liv. Even with all the bad times weighing on my memory, there were a lot of times I wished you were still around."

"We... I... Nick, I can't talk about this right now. I need some more time to think. I'll see you around, okay?"

He nodded silently, and stepped aside so she could pass.

"Just what I didn't need this week," she muttered when he was out of earshot. Still, a wistful smile made its way through her defenses and bloomed on her face for a few seconds.

xxx

_I hereby certify before the Olympic Committee that I have never taken any sort of performance enhancing drug, including anabolic steroids, nootropics, nanoreconstructives, or Cortexiphan. I also certify that I have never been in contact with any of the Cortexiphan augmentees, as listed below, that has the ability to augment another human being in violation of the regulations of the International Olympic Committee._

xxx

The TF4 Death March. These were the words whispered by Institute students who had field training at Training Field Four. TF4 was over a half a mile away from the main school complex, and just under a mile away from the dormitories. Due to the unevenly annexed nature of the Institute's land holdings, and a series of hills in the area, the only spots of clear land that were suitable for the transformation into Institute-grade training fields were far-flung indeed.

However, Claire O'Killey appreciated the effort that the school coordinators put into making it a less daunting journey. There was a bank of golf carts right next to the Athletic Fields (which were a good hike away from the center of campus) that were available to be used by students with the right training. However, the golf carts had an unfortunate habit of getting into unexplainable accidents. Considering that pyrokinesis was a relatively common power among augmentees, this wasn't particularly surprising.

Still, the perpetual lack of usable carts was a burden to the students of the Institute. Both TF3 and TF4 were inaccessible by car, as well, so even the students with licenses couldn't get there. And so it was that the four teenagers in Unit Fourteen were making their way up the winding tree-lined path towards the practice field.

Tyler and Sayuri were talking about old movies – apparently an interest that they had in common – and Bill was out in front of the group, looking off into the trees and apparently just enjoying the view. Claire hung back, lost in her own thoughts.

She had already resolved to talk to Professor Dunham after the field practice that day. The more quickly she got onto a team with a different focus, the happier everyone involved would be. Her only concern was that Professor Dunham might get offended or think there was something wrong with _her_, so Claire was thinking of ways to phrase her request better.

Heavier on her mind was the question of what to do with Tyler and Bill. Even after a day and a half of cohabitation and a slew of Institute-mediated social events, the two boys couldn't stand each other. Sayuri and Claire could only act as a mediating factor for so long, and if Claire left, it would be putting a lot of pressure on Sayuri, and she didn't want to strain her burgeoning relationship with the technopath.

A beep behind her snapped her back to the real world. Around the curve behind them came an extended golf cart, painted in charcoal and crimson, with Professor Dunham at the wheel. She pulled to a stop beside them on the narrow walkway. "Need a lift?"

Tyler and Sayuri got in the second row of seats, and Bill took the rear-facing bench at the back. Shrugging, Claire sat in the front next to Professor Dunham.

"So, this is a good opportunity to start the lesson early." Dunham eased the cart back into motion. "Can anyone tell me what's strange about this situation?"

"You managed to get a cart?" Sayuri asked.

"No, that's just teacher privilege." Dunham grinned. "Good guess though."

Claire saw immediately what her teacher was getting at. "You can teleport."

Dunham touched her nose and pointed at Claire, taking her hands off the wheel for a moment. "Right on. So, if I can bend the fabric of space to my will, why would I need to be driving a golf cart?"

"To pick us up?" Tyler asked hopefully.

"As nice as it is to give you all a lift, I honestly thought I was ahead of you. I got delayed with some...personal stuff." She shook her head. "No, that's not it. Bill?"

Bill craned his neck around from the back seat. "There's some kind of limitation on your power."

"Right." Dunham swerved to avoid a pothole, then continued. "If I could just teleport wherever I wanted, whenever I wanted, I wouldn't have to walk anywhere. That leads me to one of the most important things about power training. There are three rules of power limitations. The first is that every augmentee has limits on what they can do. The second is that keeping your abilities secret is important in any antagonistic situation. The third is that nobody's power limits are stable. They might change from day to day, and an augmentee can purposely stretch their abilities and make them stronger, like working out a muscle."

The cart pulled up in front of a chain-link fence enclosing a large circular greenbelt. In the middle of the circle was a twenty foot tall steel pillar with an umbrella-like inverted dome on top. Near the base was a computer terminal. Professor Dunham unlocked the gate and ushered the students through, then sent each of them to a cardinal direction to wait for further instructions.

Waiting at the eastern side of the field, Claire found herself with more time to think. She couldn't wait until after the training session to talk to Professor Dunham, she had to do it immediately. She still wasn't sure what to say, but she had to say _something_ before she was forced into combat training that she didn't want and wouldn't use.

Suddenly, something shimmered in the air in front of Claire. Slowly, fading in from transparency, there appeared a silver cylinder ten feet long and a foot and a half across, lying in the grass like a discarded log. The surface of it rippled like mercury, but it held a solid form.

"Welcome to Training Field Four," said Professor Dunham. Her voice was amplified by something inside the tower, and it resonated clearly around the field. "The machine here in the middle was a donation from Massive Dynamic. It makes training dummies and other constructs out of protomatter, but they're only stable as long as the computer keeps pumping energy into them. Anything made here can't exist outside the fence, and if any of these things is close to hurting any of you, either the computer or I will shut it down."

Claire could see that the other students now had targets too. Bill and Tyler were both facing clusters of inert, humanoid dummies, and Sayuri was standing across from a facsimile of a robot. All of them were made of the same silvery liquid.

"Sayuri, your job is to reason with that robot. It's programmed to hate you. Tyler, you need to freeze as many people as possible in one blast. Bill, same for you, except you don't freeze things, you... do whatever it is you do. Claire, lift the log." Dunham put down the microphone and leaned nonchalantly against the pillar in the center of the field.

Claire stared at the "log" on the ground before her. It certainly didn't look solid enough to lift, but it was somehow keeping its shape. She approached it cautiously and knelt on the soft grass before it, studying its surface for handholds. As soon as Claire held out her hand to touch the shifting surface, an indentation appeared, hollowing out into a handhold. When she took her hand away, the cavity filled in again.

It took her a few tries to get her hands into a position she was comfortable with, but the accommodating nature of the material made it easy to gain purchase on it. She tried to roll it a little, to get a sense of how heavy it was, but couldn't get it to budge.

Then she closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and focused on the spot three inches behind her forehead, the little burning ember of her Cortexiphan power.

The world suddenly felt a lot flimsier, and her muscles ached with raw power. With one coordinated lift, she heaved the metal log ten feet into the air. It landed partially on its side and crashed to the ground with a dull thud, causing Claire to yelp and roll backwards to avoid it.

Claire stood to find Professor Dunham walking over to her. Bill, Sayuri, and Tyler were all still wrestling with their own training dummies. Dunham lightly jumped over the fallen log. "Good start, and it's nice to see that you can pick up a significant load right away. However, that's not what I'm looking for right now. How long can you lift it?"

Claire brushed herself off and looked at the ground. "The strength only comes in short bursts. Actually, there's something I wanted to..."

"The entire point today is to stretch your abilities. How long can you sustain a burst of strength?"

"It... It depends on how strong I need to be."

"Well, you were clearly using more than you needed to for this log. Try just lifting one end of it. How long could you keep that up?"

"About ten seconds."

"Then today, you're going for eleven." Dunham turned to walk over to Tyler, who was shooting blasts of icy air out of his hands at the mannequins.

"Professor Dunham, I _really_ need to talk to you."

Dunham turned around with an unreadable expression. "Yes?"

"I don't think I can do this any more."

Dunham's brow wrinkled in confusion. "I thought you could produce one burst of strength every minute or so."

"That's not what I meant. I can't do combat training. I don't want to be on an investigation team, I want to do humanitarian work."

Dunham sighed and sat down on the log. She patted the space beside her, and Claire seated herself next to her teacher. The log reacted, much as it had with the handholds, providing a deceptively soft and cushiony surface. "Who says this is combat training?"

"You've got all of us dealing with combat situations, though."

"The other three are, it's true." Dunham looked over to where the robot was chasing Sayuri around her quarter of the field, waving its arms and shouting mechanically. "But Destiny told me that you'd be more interested in peaceful applications."

"Wait, you _knew_?"

Dunham nodded. "And to be honest, I'm at as much of a loss as you are. My specialty is in combat training. I think if I hadn't been in the First Generation I might have been a police officer. And so I wasn't sure where to start with your training. Destiny just gave me that knowing look of hers and said I'd figure it out." She rested her elbows on her knees and looked Claire straight in the eye. "But I'll tell you what. Hauling heavy objects off of people is awfully useful to a paramedic."

Claire sat up a little straighter. She hadn't thought of that. She had considered her powers to be something at cross purposes to her personality, a stylistic choice that made very little sense. "Well, I guess that's right."

"Stick with me and Unit Fourteen for a while longer, and I'll give you one hell of a reference letter." Dunham stood. "We'll figure this out. Now, remember. Eleven seconds."

Claire watched Dunham's back as she hustled to help Sayuri with her robot problem, then back to the passive quicksilver log laying on the flattened sod.

Eleven seconds. She could do this.

xxx

_Subject 4722, Nairobi facility: Cortexiphan-beta pretesting indicates that this subject will develop an ability related to advanced perception. Considering the cases of Subjects 711, 23, and 405, advanced perception has been known to have adverse effects on mental health. Subject 4722 will remain in the program, but administrators are instructed to administer Septima at first sign of adverse mental effects._

xxx

Junior Agent Astrid Farnsworth ducked under the yellow caution tape that Agent Charlie Francis was holding up for her. A few of the media types that were on the scene scowled at yet another non-media person being let in to the crime scene, but Astrid wasn't exactly going to cry crocodile tears for the gore paparazzi.

"Witness found the body last night in the alley behind Toroni's," Charlie explained. They made their way through the alleyway, surrounded on both sides by fifties-era brick walls in need of repair. "The witness was an 'urban orienteer,' whatever that is. Anyway, he was going through the connecting alleyway when he found this."

The two of them turned a corner to the space behind the sandwich shop. A small, dark teenage girl lay there with her head in a pool of blood, looking oddly peaceful despite her unnatural posture. There was already a chalk outline around her, and picture markers dotted the surrounding asphalt.

"Two things that the first officers on the scene noticed," Charlie said. "First, she apparently bled out from her ears. Second, there's this."

He pulled a pen out of his pocket and lifted up part of the girl's hair, matted and dark with blood. Behind it, there was a rectangular patch of skin cut out of the back of her neck, and the flesh and bone beneath it were shattered and amorphous.

"What could have done this? And why?" Astrid took out her own pen and probed gingerly at the hole.

"We don't know." Charlie stood up. "But we'd better find out, and soon."

Astrid put on a latex glove and gingerly reached into the deceased girl's back pocket. Inside was a navy blue wallet with a transparent window on the outside, prominently displaying a charcoal and crimson identification card.

"She's a student of the Institute," she said, holding the card out to Charlie. "Nyra Palankis."

"Which means that this is even worse than we thought." Charlie rubbed his forehead. "Well, looks like you get to have your first time dealing with the Director."

Astrid took one more look back at the body before making the call.


	4. Under the Radar

He had been in this form too long. It was the shape of a balding, gray-skinned man, the likes of which could be found in bureaucratic offices anywhere in the world, and it was an especially good guise for blending and mingling.

But his taste for nondescript, forgettable forms notwithstanding, Te'Jaerm had been in this one for seven months and twelve days, and it was beginning to itch. He paced back and forth in front of his two technicians. They were solid Breaker partisans, the most loyal that the Proto terrorist leader could rustle up. They were both in female forms at the moment, both having come from especially volatile deep-cover assignments.

"The first rift is closing, sir," one of them said. She leaned over a tangle of equipment, topless, so her useless clothing did not impair her ability to work the equipment. Te'Jaerm viewed her form with annoyance, wishing she could have taken proper protomatter form with proper quicksilver digits and proper Proto dexterity. But that was impossible by the very nature of this mission, so the two terrorists and their leader were required to wear forms they loathed.

The space-pincher, a complex and labyrinthine piece of equipment, was laid out in disarray on the concrete floor of the basement. Fluorescent lights flickered overhead, paling in comparison to the arclight brilliance of the inner workings of the device. The other technician tweaked something, just one more of the thousands of minor alterations that kept the whole affair from detonating in their faces, and paused to look up at Te'Jaerm. "We can hold it steady for another ten to fifteen minutes before we'll need to open it again."

Te'Jaerm waved his arm dismissively. "Good. How soon can you set the timer?"

"Immediately, sir. But what about our agent on the inside?"

"If he doesn't do anything stupid, we won't have any problems. Our main issue is that he only understands this operation in vague terms, and his conception of the objectives might just be a little skewed."

"Sir, the timer is ready to set."

"So do it. And then we can get far, far away from here." Te'Jaerm looked wistfully at the staircase and scratched his itchy scalp again. "Finally we will be rid of that quisling slop-pile that calls herself an ambassador."

And then, he thought, maybe I can get a new body.

xxx

**Better Days**

**Chapter 4**

**Under the Radar**

xxx

_Interviewer: Ambassador, I'd like to start out by asking the question that's on everyone's mind. Is there any legitimacy to Te'Jaerm's threats?_

_Te'mee: Te'Jaerm is my groupmate, and there was a time that I could have called him a friend. I was even there when he founded the Breakers...not under that name, of course. Few people know that it began as a peaceful activist group. But for all that I'm aware of Te'Jaerm's failings, solemnity is not one of them. If he claims that he's going to do something, he _is_ going to do it._

_Interviewer: So are you afraid for your well-being, and that of other Protos associated with Secretary Bishop and humanity at large?_

_Te'mee: Yes. Yes, I am._

xxx

The evacuation was going better than Colonel Broyles could have hoped. Running security for a party full of government bigwigs was never easy; only Hollywood celebrities were worse in terms of disobeying security teams' wishes. Still, the fact that Broyles was well-known (and well-respected) helped him greatly in his evacuation of the ballroom.

"Colonel Broyles!"

Broyles turned to find himself face-to-face with none other than Senator Brigham. He kept his face as emotionless as possible, and very consciously removed his hand from the grip of his blaster. Senator Brigham, Broyles found, had a way of making you want to shoot him. This was best dealt with by removing the temptation. "Can I help you, Senator?"

"I need access to the shelter!" Brigham was working up into a well-lathered rage, and if Broyles (and the rest of Fringe Division) was lucky, he'd pop a blood vessel right there. _Nobody would notice one fewer politician, would they?_ "Immediately!"

"What shelter?" Broyles asked. He knew damn well which shelter the other man meant, but he also knew that nobody was supposed to know about it. Of course, every politician worth their salt had an information network the size of a decent block party, and if anyone else had requested access, Broyles wouldn't have made such a fuss. But the aforementioned vein popping was still on the table, and the colonel had no intention of giving Brigham access to anything.

"You know _exactly_ which shelter I mean." Brigham's face contorted. "You're no use." He began to push his way backwards through the outflowing crowd of silk-clad ball-goers, jostling and pushing in the direction that the Ambassador had supposedly gone.

Broyles stepped into the crowd as well. With the adeptness of a longtime MP officer, he sidestepped nimbly through the jostling elbows and stampeding formal wear and caught Senator Brigham by the elbow.

With a surprising show of strength, Brigham yanked his arm away from Broyles's grasp. The Senator turned with a grace that belied his figure and threw a blue-clad young woman (apparently another Senator's daughter) into Broyles's path.

Broyles caught the terrified socialite before she fell to the floor and spun her around behind him. However, the distraction had given Brigham time to rampage through the crowd, throwing people to the floor as he went.

One of the greatest threats to human life during an evacuation, Broyles knew, is trampling. People in a human stampede don't look as closely as they should to what's going on around them, so anyone on the floor is in serious risk. The people escaping currently were quite possibly the least observant crowd Broyles had ever known, and there was a factor in play that was actively encouraging a fatal accident. He hadn't the slightest clue why Brigham was acting the way he was, but Broyles's training had taught him to carefully balance time spent planning and time spent acting.

There was no time to plan, and even less to act. If he didn't do something soon, this panicky crowd was going get someone killed. And so, with an unthinking ease borne of long hours of practice, Broyles drew his gun. His thumb went to the two levers on the grip; he set one to 'stun' and the other to 'wide spread', and began firing into the crowd.

xxx

_The Obelisk system, designation 43312, should be deployed at a Fringe event after a brief period of amber encasement. However, the technology of the Obelisks contains sources from _**[redacted]**_ and _**[redacted]**_, and if captured by the wrong hands (possible groups include _**[redacted]**_ and other domestic terrorists, but especially _**[redacted]**_) can be used to produce_** [redacted]**_. Therefore, only technicians at TS-4 or higher security clearance are even cleared to open the front panel. Only Bishop Dynamic or DoD representatives with TS-8 security clearance or higher are permitted to service the internal _**[redacted]**_._

xxx

The saferoom in the Bishop residence was better-protected than many parts of the DoD headquarters. Twenty solid feet of nanoweave-reinforced concrete surrounded all sides of the room, with only a single reinforced elevator shaft puncturing the top of the cocoon. The nanoweave was electrically conductive, forming a multi-layered Faraday cage around the saferoom that blocked all electromagnetic waves, from cell phone transmissions to computer-shattering EMP blasts. In short, the bunker could withstand anything up to and including a small nuke without flinching.

Not, of course, that the room's appearance belied any of its fortification. Elizabeth Bishop had her hand here, too, as she did in the rest of the house, and she was not the sort to let evacuees and refugees languish in an improperly decorated saferoom. The room was as subtly and tastefully adorned as the rest of the house; and despite the lack of windows (or, in fact, doors) she had to work with, it looked precisely like any other annex of the mansion. It was small by necessity, but the sofa, armchair, and coffee table were sufficient for a few people to take refuge here. If a larger crowd required the use of the saferoom, they would likely have much more pressing matters at hand than seating accommodations.

When the elevator doors slid open, though, the decoration was the furthest thing from Peter Bishop's mind. All that mattered was the couch in the middle of the room, and the contents of a cabinet stashed behind a false panel in the back of the saferoom.

Ambassador Te'mee stumbled beside him, one amorphous arm resting on Peter's shoulder for support. The rift had gotten stronger on the elevator ride down, and she had taken the most basic shape that was still capable of locomotion: a headless biped, just two arms and legs attached to a stocky torso. In normal circumstances, Peter might have found the time to be alarmed by the degradation of her shape from elegantly artful to pragmatic and rough, but he had been around Protos enough not to let their small quirks bother him. He just guided her to the couch (he had guessed, apparently correctly, that she was also too distracted to form the silvery patches that let her see) and immediately crossed the plush carpet to the back of the room. The only sounds were his footsteps and his own heartbeat, thudding in his ears; voice was another thing that Te'mee didn't have the energy to sustain. Better to be silent than a silvery puddle on the floor.

The false panel at the back of the room slid back to reveal a shelf holding a hammered steel box, with one clear Plexiglas face that revealed a snarl of wires, ribbed conduits, and intricately milled metal parts. There was a single dial on the top, and Peter cranked it to maximum.

Almost immediately, there was a shivery gasp from the couch. Peter walked over with the box and set it down on the coffee table before sitting in the chair.

Quickly, the rapidly degenerating ambassador began to retake her normal shape. First her head, with two lighter silver patches that let her see. Then her arms and legs regained definition, the quicksilver material weaving itself into toned muscle.

"Whoa, whoa, take it easy." Peter leaned over and placed his hand on Te'mee's shoulder. "Don't go for too much detail. It's just me."

Her metamorphosis halted, leaving her with a basic feminine form, but without the intricate rippling detail she used when she was dressed up. "I lost some time there. Memories just don't store the same way when I can't focus. I remember the rift sirens, and then..."

"And then I helped you down here to the safe room." Peter gestured at the room about him. "It's a Faraday cage, but I don't know how much that actually helps. Not all of the energy from a rift is electromagnetic."

"I'm not sure how I'm supposed to help my species survive in this world if we turn to goo every time there's a little soft spot," Te'mee said wryly. "Doesn't seem good for our survival. So, if the Faraday cage around this room doesn't help, then I'm guessing that that box on the table is what's damping the effects of the dimensional breach?"

Peter nodded and pushed it over to her to examine. "My father won't tell me how the Obelisks work. He let me see blueprints, but without any context, neither I nor my scientists have been able to figure out how they work. So I've had them reverse engineering a few things. We don't have the full capabilities of an Obelisk, or in fact anything that can permanently stabilize a vortex like an Obelisk or amber can, but this prototype can soften the energies from the rift a little bit."

"So why not just requisition an Obelisk and bring it down here?"

"Because they don't work that way. That's why we have to use the amber for a few days before we can get one set up. Each breach has its own energy signature, and that's what the Obelisk feeds off of. They need to be 'tuned' before they can be used permanently. That much we've been able to figure out, despite Dad's unwillingness to tell me anything."

Te'mee seemed to relax a little. Peter had gotten good at reading her quirks of body language in the years he'd known her. Still, there was tension in the way she held herself. "Are they going to seal us in here?"

"If worse comes to worst? Maybe." Peter gestured to the mini-bar. "There's actually two weeks' worth of food and water in there, behind the front part with the alcohol. So even if we do get sealed in, we won't get trapped in amber and I'll be just fine. Until a few days pass and we go stir crazy and start trying to climb the walls, anyway."

Te'mee laughed weakly. "Got any board games?"

"Something as crass as board games in one of Mom's creations? Perish the thought."

"Well, happy birthday, Peter."

"I know, right? The sad thing is, I'm not so sure this was a bad thing. You know there's too much politicking in your life when you'd almost rather spend your birthday in a fallout shelter than at your own party."

"Your father was trying to insulate you, though. And I'd've been glad to lure off some of the unsavories, too. But I don't think that someone in your position could have a party without it turning into something like this."

"You're right, you're right." Peter stood up and headed over to the mini-bar. "I guess I don't give Dad enough credit. I love running BD, being on the cutting edge of things, but there's always been a part of me that was frustrated with him for pushing me into the limelight like this. I didn't ask for it, but he didn't ask for his importance either...it just kind of happened."

"I'd argue the second part. Walter chose this crusade for himself. He hasn't let himself become Ahab over it, but it's still an obsession."

Peter pulled out a bottled Mai Tai mix and a glass. "Ahab, huh? I didn't know you were a Herman Melville fan."

Te'mee cocked her head to the side. "Moby Dick was written by Samuel Taylor Coleridge."

"Uh, right. I always get them mixed up." Peter swizzled some rum into his glass and brought his drink back to the chair. "You're right, though. Dad complains about the attention sometimes, but I've always known this is right where he wants to be. I'm not sure he could function without some kind of cause. Me, though, I'm not so sure."

"Well, either way, here's to ducking out of a party early." She formed her hand into the likeness of a martini glass again and raised it, but it collapsed almost as soon as it was formed. "Augh..."

"Hey, I told you to take it easy with the details. We can toast later."

Te'mee rubbed her rapidly reforming hand. "Still, the party wasn't a total bust. You seemed pretty interested in that redheaded Fringe agent." She formed a mouth for the express purpose of flashing him a wicked grin.

"Pfft. That's me, the ladykiller."

"Pretty self-deprecating, for the most eligible bachelor in America."

"Wait a minute, who decided _that?_"

"It was on the TV last ni-" Suddenly, a red light on the rift-blocking box began to blink furiously. Within seconds, Te'mee had reverted back to her basic bipedal form.

"Te'mee! Are you... what am I saying, of course you're not okay." Peter jumped up and began to fiddle with the dials on the device. "Uh, shake your arm once if the rift got stronger, and twice if you think the box is failing."

There was a pause, and Te'mee shook one thick limb once...twice...three times.

"I'm really not sure where to go with that," Peter said, still fiddling with the box.

Then the red light died, and Te'mee lost her shape altogether.

xxx

_Cynthia: Dr. Peter Bishop has once again topped the America's Most Eligible Bachelor list. What do you think, ladies?_

_Rachel: Not going to last long. Every gold-digger on the East Coast is going to get a piece of that. He's not going to hold out on that forever._

_Linda: Nah, not this guy. I'm getting kind of a Tim McCabe vibe from him. You know, that guy did a bunch of hit movies, everyone was trying to figure out which starlet he'd hook up with, and he ends up marrying one of the animators who did the CGI for Fatal Justice. Right out of nowhere._

_Cynthia: But Dr. Bishop isn't in movies, so if you're right, it'll be even more unexpected._

xxx

The sound of blaster fire was the last thing Agent Olivia Dunham expected during a routine evacuation.

She was stationed out by the doors where she had entered the building, watching confused partygoers stream into the garden. She dropped into a fairly mindless routine of directing human traffic, rerouting wayward socialites toward the next checkpoint in the planned evacuation schedule.

And then there was a shout, a confused yelp or two, and the sound of a Fringe issue stun blaster, and the crowd broke into a run. Fortunately, the way out was spacious and well-marked; none of the government officials in attendance wandered into Elizabeth Bishop's prized chrysanthemums.

Olivia elbowed her way into the onrushing tide with a tenacity borne of desperation. She had no way of knowing what was happening inside the house, but if there was an altercation she was needed.

Fortunately, the same 'cop presence' that had gained her easy access to the party in the first place helped her avoid the flood of panicked people here. They didn't exactly part like the Red Sea at her approach, but she never needed to elbow anyone twice.

Her step faltered when she cleared into the ballroom to find Colonel Broyles, stunner in hand, calmly taking fire on unarmed civilians. From what Olivia could see, he was using a wide spread shot to take down as many people as possible as quickly as possible. About twenty people, all of whom had been behind him in line, succumbed to the ultrasonic difference tone and fell to the ground.

On instinct, Olivia drew her own stunner with a blurringly quick twitch of her arm and pointed it dead center at her boss' head. She took two steps through the discarded martini glasses and upturned chairs to get a better target. "Sir."

He turned to face her with a flash of fear in his eyes. "Agent Dunham. Holster your weapon, I need you to..."

A door, far across the ballroom, slammed shut. Olivia's aim shifted to it briefly, just long enough for her to catch a glimpse of shadow moving right in the hallway beyond. "Sir, you just stunned a crowd of unarmed, innocent civilians."

"They were going to stampede." He frowned. "Listen, Dunham, that's not important. You need to find Senator Brigham. Something's wrong with him, he's trying to get to the saferoom, and he's getting away. GO."

Olivia took a few seconds to churn through the clipped explanation. Her stunner barrel didn't move an inch from Broyles' head while she thought, but when her instincts had time to catch up to the current situation, she holstered her weapon. "Yes, sir."

As she hustled to the back of the room, Olivia tried to make more sense of the situation. Her trust and loyalty for Broyles outweighed the strangeness of the situation for the time being, but she couldn't ignore Broyles's methods. Stunning a crowd of civilians was an odd and dangerous move, despite the threat posed by overcrowding.

The door that the Senator (or what Broyles had told her was the Senator) had gone through turned out to be the employee's entrance into the kitchen, a wide door that swung both ways for easy transit carrying trays of food. Olivia kicked it open and slipped past it before it swung back the other direction, rocking on its hinges.

The kitchen was empty; Olivia guessed that the staff had another evacuation route, to keep the ballroom exit mostly clear. Various pots and pans were still out. Some of them were still on the stove, bubbling away, and Olivia turned off one of these that looked like a fire hazard. It wasn't hard to discern where Brigham had gone off to—the emergency exit at the far end of the kitchen was still swinging open.

The emergency exit led to an underground corridor, a dimly-lit concrete sarcophagus that shared its space with exposed plumbing and wiring conduits. Since the hallway ran in a straight line, Olivia could finally see the back of her quarry. It was definitely Brigham; the man had a distinctive profile to be sure. She thumbed the switches on her blaster and took aim, remarking briefly on the irony that she was about to do what she had just been judging Broyles for doing, and pulled the trigger.

A shimmering ball of air, like a moving mirage, leapt through the space between Olivia and Brigham. It slammed into his back, puffing out like a dust cloud, and there was a flash of silver on the back of Brigham's head. He staggered, but kept running, flashing one terrified glance over his shoulder at Olivia before the silver patch on his head turned back into bald skin and receding hair.

Olivia dropped the pistol to her side again and focused her efforts on running instead of shooting. Brigham ran surprisingly fast for a sedentary politician, but it was difficult to trump the expertise of a woman who was trained as a predator.

Brigham took a left turn down a small side corridor as Olivia gained on him. He stripped off his tuxedo jacket and threw it behind him, hoping to trip her, but she just jumped over it, turned on a dime, and followed him down the smaller hallway.

This one was a little nicer, with actual paint on the concrete walls, and arrows marked "SAFEROOM." There was an elevator at the end of the hall, incongruously paneled in rich mahogany, and another pathway leading right.

Brigham reached the elevator and reared his arm back, unleashing a punch at the door. The wooden façade split and the metal warped under the force, but Olivia caught up with him before he could take another punch.

She twisted to the side as she approached and barreled into him with her shoulder at full speed. The first thing she noticed was that he was a lot heavier and more solid than he should have been; although he still fell sprawling to the ground, a hit like that should have sent him flying. The second thing she noticed was that he seemed to flex as he hit her, moving in the way no human should. That confirmed a suspicion that she'd been nursing since she saw the back of his head flash silver.

"Stay on the ground!" She touched her earpiece. "Broyles!"

A slightly tinny voice sounded in her ear, notes of strain and tension evident despite the lack of fidelity. "Dunham? Did you catch him?"

Brigham managed to get up on his elbows before Olivia shot him again. His skin turned silver and he slumped to the ground. "He's a Proto."

There was silence on the other end of the line, and Brigham—or the thing that wore his face—gave off a metallic groan. Finally, Broyles responded with a muffled curse. "Get him out the nearest exit. Lincoln says something's wrong with the rift readings and we don't want to lose our only suspect."

"Yes, sir." Olivia reached down and grabbed the shapeshifter's arm. "Alright, you're coming with me."

Suddenly, the arm fell off and melted into a puddle of silvery goo. Brigham reformed into his normal, humanoid self, sans one arm. He just tilted his head at her and bolted down the corridor again toward the exit.

Olivia had to step carefully around the arm goop to get good friction, costing her precious seconds. She hadn't known that Protos taking a solid form could shed limbs like that; it was something she'd have to mention to the anti-terrorism people if they didn't know already. She hit her stride quickly and spun around the corner to chase down the terrorist.

Whether it was the reduced weight or the fact that he was no longer concerned about breaking cover, Brigham was a bit faster this time, and Olivia had to drive herself even harder to keep up with him. She didn't even try stunning him again; although she could shoot on the run better than any of her fellow agents, she didn't have the stamina to aim well and run at top speed simultaneously. Besides, the stunner hadn't had much of an effect before.

Brigham burst through the door to the outside, and Olivia caught it before it slammed shut. The door opened to part of the backyard, a cobblestone-lined path leading to a guest house bigger than most suburban homes. Hedges surrounded the whole complex, and there was an abandoned guard tower at the corner where two of the hedges met. This was a visitors' garden instead of a showy one like out front; as such, it was more open, and the foliage tended towards live oak trees instead of bushes. Still, the hedges were solid enough, and the meandering paths prevented quick travel from one point to another.

That is, unless you cut through the plants. Brigham had clearly had the same idea, and leapt into a small planter of flowers, clearing it in a few steps. Olivia chose a different path, mostly staying to the cobblestones where she could get more traction, only cutting through grass and other easily traversed plants.

She caught up with him as he was trying to beat his way through the hedge. She kicked him in the back of the kneecap and kneed him in the head as he went down, leaving him to fall into the hedge in a sitting position.

"Somehow, I don't think you were just here to eat the deviled eggs," Olivia said as she thumbed her pistol to a more lethal setting. "So why don't we just take a trip back to HQ to figure out what you're really up to?"

The man-who-wasn't-Brigham simply looked at her with a predatory blankness. Parts of his body were shifting back to liquid silver at random, soaking through his tuxedo shirt and reforming with the shirt embedded in the fake flesh. He seemed to be concentrating fairly hard on holding himself together. "I already finished what I was 'up to'—distracting you from the Ambassador."

"Distracting—" Olivia was interrupted by an explosion to the south, outside the grounds of the mansion. A wave of shining yellow light passed through the area, only milliseconds before a blast wave threw Olivia off her feet. The yellow light seemed to make Brigham dissolve as it passed through him, solid limbs turning to drops, then to droplets, then vapor, then nothing.

Olivia stood up and dusted herself off. She dimly heard Broyles saying something in her ear, but all she could do was stare at the ground where the terrorist had been moments before.


End file.
